In January 2016, US Navy riverine boats were compromised in the Persian Gulf due to GPS spoofing—a cyber attack attributed to Iranian forces. The spoofing misled the ships into Iranian territorial waters, leading to the seizure of two US Navy vessels and their 10 sailors by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The crew was detained and taken to Farsi Island, where they were held briefly before being released. The incident occurred on the same day as a major speech by the then-US President, amplifying its geopolitical impact.The attack was a strategic embarrassment for the US, providing Iran with leverage in nuclear negotiations and diverting attention from its frozen assets in Western banks. While US officials later claimed the incident resulted from crew misnavigation, independent analyses confirmed GPS spoofing—a low-cost, high-impact cyber tactic—was the primary cause. The event exposed vulnerabilities in military navigation systems, risked escalation in US-Iran tensions, and demonstrated how cyber manipulation of critical infrastructure (GPS) could disrupt military operations and international diplomacy.